Coming Home
by Yanghuntlove
Summary: aftermath of Cristina and Owen's final scenes in Season 8 finale. A little look into their thought processes in the woods vs in the conference room.


**Author's note: Hi everyone! Long time, no write! I struggled at times in the darkness of season 8 for our beloved Owen and Cristina, I can't lie it was rough! But the SF left me feeling very hopeful and am feeling inspired to write.**

**This is a little one shot looking at Cristina and Owen's thoughts during their final scenes of the SF. I always get a sense that so much of what they should verbalise to each other they process internally and express in how they look at each other.**

**Also I am still a romantic about Cristina and Owen- the season 5 love story still echoes in everything for me! **

**Hope you like. Read and review **

**P.s: if anyone has any ideas for chapters for Baby, baby, baby let me know and I will try to write them,xxxxx**

Why, with this couple, did it always come down to 3 words?

Three words deeply felt, three words declared on vents, on returning to the here and now, on leaving to step into the unknown without you.

Three words left unsaid each and every time when they most needed to be heard.

Physically exposed against the elements, the darkness allowed the strange comfort of a veil of secrecy, allowing her the freedom to sit with the heavy burden of emotions that were pressing on her chest.

The tears fell unbidden from her eyes as her memory recounted vivid pictures of home and her body ached to return there.

To return not to the stainless steel chasm of the OR or the bricks, mortar or warmth of their firehouse.

Home was not about complexity or geography anymore- Seattle or Minnesota, the frat house or the dream house, ER or OR.

It was simply him.

His arms were her anchor, his breath on her neck her safety, his love her shelter.

Owen was her home.

She had tried to move out, to move him out, to just move on but as a wise mentor had told her months before...the heart informs the head.

How could the words "I'm leaving", be the last thing she ever got to say to the man who changed her heartbeat?

A wave of fierce anger engulfed her system. Her heartbeat quickened as if it was trying to beat some sense into her.

Anger that she was sitting in the woods with one shoe, one working arm, no light, no food and no tangible escape route.

Anger that she was not able to tell him that she loved him verbally in that moment after their bodies had declared just that sentiment to each other in a blissful re-connection she feared, when he told her he had cheated weeks before, they would never share again.

Anger that what she knew she wanted- to be a surgeon, to achieve professional greatness and win acclaim as the best in her field- could still deny her what she now knew she needed- to truly be his wife, to surrender to personal happiness and fully embrace his love and appreciate what having that really meant.

Anger that it had taken a plane literally falling out of the sky to force her head to catch up with her heart. That witnessing another loosing their "person", literally loosing their love in front of her had been the catalyst to finding her voice. And now she was ready to scream, to shout, to tell him the answers to every question he had ever asked of her. To tell him the truth.

Testing it out, a whisper against the world's silence.

_"Owen Hunt, you are my person. I truly, wholeheartedly know that now. You' .Person. 3 words once again. 3 words that I couldn't say for fear of their impact on me and the other side of the life I want to live. But I get it now- great love is enabling, it is stabilising, it wraps itself around all of you and gives your life a firm foundation. I love you, I will always love you. I want 40 years with you. I am coming home. Back to you. Home to you."_

**Meanwhile, back in the conference room at Seattle Grace Mercy West...**

Owen stared at the phone paralysed with absolute fear.

_They had not turned up? Where was the plane? Where were his staff? _His brain raced through potential scenarios, each one more terrifying to contemplate than the last.

His colleagues, his friends, to all intense and purpose, his family were missing.

Missing in action.

How many times had he had to deliver those words to commanding officers about the members of the other "family" he had lost in an instant miles away on the planes of an unnamed desert. The irony of the hint of deja vu in his current situation did little to settle the ever increasing anxiety that was clutching at his chest like a vice.

But selfishly the only question he needed an immediate answer too was _Where is my wife?_

He rubbed his hand over his heart, willing it to stay in his chest, to settle his ragged breathing enough to allow his system to flood with oxygen and clear his head and allow him precious time to think.

As the Chief of Surgery he knew he needed to implement some kind of search and rescue strategy but right now he could only be Owen Hunt, terrified husband of Cristina Yang.

Anxiety was squashed and quickly replaced by anger. His fists clenched and made contact with the table with a sickening thud, as he thought back to his last encounter with his wife in their on call room.

How could words have failed him yet again in a moment where he should have told her his heart?

_"I'm Leaving"_

Her final words were emblazoned on his memory and his eyes stung as he recalled how she had slowly turned her gaze away from him, her head resting on the warmth of his chest as his whole world froze.

Now she might be gone forever and he too was lost.

He mentally replayed his day in the aftermath of their physical encounter but prior to picking up the message that had shifted the world once again. Another day in his life marked out by loss- his wife, his head of cardio and his friend.

Whilst closing the chapter on that friendship and exchanging parting words, it had taken Teddy, of all people, to remind him who he was- Major Owen Hunt.

He was a warrior, he never gave up hope of salvage until he had exhausted every possibility. To be victorious in war you get creative, put your faith in skill and in miracles.

But how could you fight for something that may already be lost?

For this man this question was entirely rhetorical.

Simple.

You forge forwards and until your own eyes see the wreckage, the casualties, the devastation you steadfastly believe you will be the conqueror.

Fear can be a great galvaniser. It can propel you to become a version of yourself you had long since left behind. It gives you power to go all in, to speak the words that could bring you either huge gain or huge loss. Fear asks you which it will be, you make your choice and prepare to do battle.

Flinging open the door and taking off on his toes down the ER corridor towards the parking lot, Major Owen Hunt made his choice and left his declarations on the wind.

_"You don't get to leave, Cristina Yang. I promised you 40 years and that is what we are fighting for. I am coming. I am coming to bring you home."_


End file.
